Chapter 21
SAWYER
LATER THAT NIGHT, I sat out on the front porch while Beckett washed off the day inside.
I had wine. I had stars. A cozy blanket. Hell, I had a lake view that people paid a fortune for.
I was sitting out there enjoying it all because I wanted to and not because I was tempted, once again, to bust in on Beckett’s shower to join him.
Okay, so maybe that was a lie.
The entire day had been a lesson in patience, because every time we accidentally touched, I felt like I was going out of my mind. Whatever was happening here was real—that much was becoming more obvious. It was just so easy with Beckett that holding back was the hard part.
I took a sip from my glass and tried to focus on the quiet instead of my thoughts, which were racing at a million miles an hour.
Kinda like Duchess earlier that morning. The ride, with her trying to remove Beckett from the earth—according to him—had been funny, obviously, and I was going to hold both her and Buttercup over his head for the foreseeable future.
Which was only the rest of a rapidly-flying-by week, but still.
I was not not thinking about that.
Another sip and I closed my eyes, but then my brain conjured images of Beckett naked and running those strong hands over his body under the hot spray, soon replaced by my hands feeling him up, all that hard muscle just begging for my touch—
No. No, I didn’t need to think that. I needed to think of something more platonic.
Like how we’d had lunch with my insane brothers, and Rome had told Beckett about his short-lived stunt career because he’d fallen off a horse.
He completely neglected to mention that he’d been drunk on champagne and fell into rosebushes, and the prickly thorns were what made him come to that decision, but I’d filled Beckett in on the details.
Yes, good. Platonic. More of that.
I pulled up the cozy blanket and settled back into the Adirondack chair.
We’d run into my moms briefly in the lobby before they headed out for a trail ride of their own, and then quite literally had bumped into Peter and Alec rounding the corner at dinner.
It had been an almost Peter-less day until that point, something I hadn’t even noticed until then.
He’d caught me, grabbing my arms before I could knock us both over, and it was strange…
His hands didn’t feel like Beckett’s when they steadied me.
They didn’t send a charge through my body or make my pulse kick up.
I didn’t look into his eyes and feel like they were dragging me under the way a certain pair of blue ones did.
Was I finally getting over Peter? It was a freakin’ miracle.
And I owed it all to the man inside, not showering, not naked, not wanting me to thank him on my knees…
Stop. I reached for my bottle of wine and topped off my glass, mostly because it gave my hands something to do.
The cabin door opened behind me, and I looked up before realizing that was a terrible idea.
Beckett stepped onto the porch, hair damp, wearing dark track pants and a Columbia University sweatshirt. So casual, so perfectly at home and sexy, that it made me glad there was a blanket over my lap.
“Nice pants,” I said, trying to keep things light because I was starting to feel the slightest buzz from the wine. Or maybe it was just the effect he had on me. “You do know you’re never escaping the Tracksuit nickname now, right?”
He glanced down at himself and shook his head. “I asked for that.”
“You did.”
“Well, shit.” He settled into the chair beside mine, stretching his legs out in front of him. I could smell his soap and all that warm skin, and wanted to just hold him and breathe him in…before doing much, much naughtier things to his body.
I cleared my throat and sat up, reaching for the glass I’d poured for him. “You thirsty, or are you gonna make me double-fist tonight?”
He smiled, and as he took the glass, his fingers brushed against mine in a way that sent heat straight up my arm and into places I was not allowing my brain to acknowledge.
Not right now, anyway.
“Careful,” he said after taking a sip. “Double-fisting wine on a porch under the stars sounds like the start of a country song.”
“Please. I’m more eighties power ballad than country.”
“I figured.” When I arched a brow, he added, “I saw the way you gave that Skid Row song all your energy at the nineties party.”
“Hey, it’s a great song.”
“If you say so.” He lifted his glass to his lips, and my attention dropped to his mouth, because apparently I was determined to make things difficult for myself.
The oversized sweatshirt should’ve helped my situation, but my brain was stuck on how good he looked in something soft and worn in, a glimpse of the man outside of this week’s circus.
I nodded toward his chest. “Columbia, huh? That your alma mater?”
“Yep. Grad school.”
“Ah. Of course it was.”
“What does that mean? Don’t tell me you went to Cornell.”
“No, it just means you have that Ivy League, disciplined, always-reads-the-instructions-before-assembling-furniture thing about you.”
He laughed. “Reading instructions is a flaw now?”
“No, it’s hot. Unfortunately.” I tucked the blanket tighter around my legs to keep me in my chair so I didn’t do anything unhinged, like crawl into his lap and ask if Columbia had taught him anything useful about restraint. Platonic, platonic. “Do you miss it?”
“School?”
“Yeah. Like the version of you who wore that sweater back then.”
“Hmm. Good question.” He swirled the wine gently in his glass, taking his time in answering. “Sometimes, maybe. Not the schedule, and definitely not the exams. But I liked knowing what I was working toward.”
“That sounds nice. Having a goal.”
“You don’t?”
“Oh. Well, technically, I guess. Just different. I went to college for broadcasting, but then I just fell into the radio thing and realized I didn’t actually need a degree, so I never finished.
But it’s a weird job—like, how do you measure what you’re working toward?
It’s just ratings, growing the audience. Keeping people listening.”
“That sounds difficult.”
“You’d be surprised how many people will tune in when your life falls apart.”
Beckett’s gaze met mine, and there it was, his full attention, which always made me feel like he was filing away everything I said. “I bet it’s because they like you more than watching you be miserable.”
“Maybe. Pain is brandable, though.” I rolled the stem of my wine glass between my fingers.
“I think…I’m tired of being the breakup guy.
Bitter Sawyer taking calls, giving terrible advice, and spiraling to Adele.
I just… It felt good to make the joke before anyone else could.
Like if I was the one laughing, then maybe I wasn’t the guy who got dumped and cried about it on air, you know? ”
“You were hurting. Trust me, it’s relatable to a lot of people.”
“Yeah, but…I don’t know that I am anymore.” I swallowed and added, “Hurting, I mean.”
A hint of a smile turned up his mouth, and he had to know. Had to know he had something to do with it.
“What do you want instead?” That was such a Beckett question. Simple and direct, with no judgment.
I held up my almost-empty glass. “I don’t think there’s enough wine for a question that big.”
“Start small.”
“Okay. Maybe…less sad sack with a microphone.”
“Step one, then. Next?”
“Maybe fewer heartbreak calls. Or if I take them, just don’t answer with shit like ‘love’s a scam’ so no one wants to drive into the river.”
“I’d listen to that.”
“You’d have to. It’s in our fake boyfriend contract.”
He smiled, but something flickered in his eyes at the word fake, and okay, there went that dip in my stomach that I’d been trying to ignore. Not because I wanted to take it back, but because it didn’t feel true anymore.
Again with the wishful thinking.
“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean—”
“I know.”
The quiet returned, full of everything we’d been sidestepping since the hot tub, the slow dance, and my spectacular attempt at ruining my own sex life with one deeply unfortunate sentence.
Beckett leaned forward and set his wine beside mine. “Sawyer.”
God, the way he said my name was enough to undo me.
“Hmm?”
“I like hearing you talk about what you want.”
That wasn’t what I’d expected. Not even close. He hadn’t had to touch me or kiss me to get a reaction, because just that sentence in his deep voice landed hotter than half the things I’d been trying not to imagine since he stepped onto the porch.
“That’s dangerous,” I said. “I talk a lot.”
“You do.”
“Wow, no denial? That was your chance to be charming.”
“I also like that.”
Oh. Oh shit.
It wasn’t just the lake and the stars and the almost-finished wine that heated my body. He was sitting close enough that I couldn’t seem to stop looking at his mouth.
And that was a bad idea. A terribly fantastic, extremely inconvenient idea.
“I don’t always know what I want,” I said softly.
His knee brushed mine. “You don’t have to know everything.”
“Don’t you?”
“No. As a matter of fact, sometimes I know exactly what I should do and still want the opposite.”
My dick throbbed. There were a lot of things that could mean—that I wanted it to mean.
“Beckett…”
It didn’t help that his eyes dropped to my mouth. I wet my lips instinctively and, when he didn’t look away, realized my mistake.
“We should probably call it a night,” I said.
“Probably.”
Neither of us moved. I should’ve topped off our glasses or made a joke, anything to cut through the sexual tension and bad ideas.
Instead I gathered up my blanket and stood. “Are you tired?”
“No.”
“Good.” My pulse kicked up hard enough that I could hear the blood rushing in my ears. “Me either.”
He stared up at me for a beat, and there was nothing casual about the way he watched me, eyes roving over my face, lingering at my mouth. The way they dropped to my hips, where he could no doubt see the semi I was sporting.
He rose slowly, but his hands stayed by his sides, like he was trying very hard to behave.
I didn’t want him to behave.
I brushed by him, reaching for the door and felt him behind me, but before I could step inside, his arm curled around my waist, and he pulled me back against his body. His breath tickled my neck, making me shiver as he spoke, low in my ear, voice gravel-rough.
“If we do this, I don’t want you wondering why.”
I shivered. “I won’t.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure that I want you,” I said, not even embarrassed at how breathless I sounded. Not when Beckett’s lips were against my neck and his arm tightened around me.
That was it, the tipping point, and before I could even think, Beckett opened the door and we burst through it.